Smoke - Michael Jackson
by peacefulnarrative
Summary: Somewhere in Los Angeles, a dangerous high-profile hitman goes on the run to find out who wants him dead. Meanwhile miles away, oppressed by one man's lust for power and control over his estate, Michael Jackson is forced to go to extreme measures to cover up his darkest secrets in an attempt to protect his legacy and reputation.
1. Chapter 1

Delicate feet pivoted upon the dank bricks above the city of New York.

During the murky afternoon, the view of City Hall Park had been somewhat obscured by fog and now the crowds of people gathering outside of the podium seemed much less like people and more like ants, swarming beneath the dark and gloomy waves of cotton overhead that threatened more rain. It was hard to see out, but who better to see through the mist than Smoke himself.

He continued to pace along the roof with great care, finally resting in a crouched position against a grubby, busted vent. As he breathed in the smell of burning fat from the kitchen that was somewhere in the building beneath him he placed a hand over his balaclava and tried not to choke up and blow the mission.

"Oh what a beautiful morning." He whispered sarcastically to himself under his breath.

"Agent Smoke." buzzed the minuscule device wrapped around his left ear. It had to be clipped and adjusted having had no room to sit among the prominent curve of piercings that dotted the rim around his right ear.

"Yes." Came the dry-throated response.

"Do you have eyes on the spider?"

Smoke was already peering through a tiny lens, down into the cloudy atmosphere and locked eyes on the stage and pedestal.

"Affirmative."

"Then you know what to do." The sound cut from the earpiece. Yet again the man atop the roof was left alone with his thoughts although in this moment he refused to truly think. Instead he recalled information from his memory about the angle, the timing. The target.

He waited it out in the bitter cold and rubbed his hands together in hopes that it would fend of the brutal atmosphere of January in New York.

New year, new strain of winter.

The thought flitted across his mind quicker than it vanished. There was no room to think of anything else other than the mission now. Through the air came a roar and it was clear that said target had arrived. The vice president.

To give a speech the world would never forget.

Smoke leaned up and took as deep a breath he could without wanting to throw up from the smell of his surroundings.

"Fate don't fail me now." he muttered to himself. He knelt and began to set up. Below were many cars, surrounding the area with security guards and police. The man in question greeted the people with bold authority and a wide smile that even Smoke could glean from his squatted position above them all.

Time itself seemed to slow around him when the vice president approached the podium and raised a hand to the people.

Smoke already knew what would fall from his lips. He'd been well informed of the treachery the president's lapdog had been engaging in. He'd turned his back on the presidency, flirted in the arms of treason. Now he was about to go to bed with it.

He was about to call the president out in a spur of deranged courage.

It was always a code red situation when Smoke was called in to handle things. He was the man behind many high-profile situations. He was always the last resort.

Smoke knew that this particular case wasn't just an act of political retribution, it was act to level all future calamities before they dared to occur. This was to set an example. Scandals in The White House, no matter how accurate in their portrayal, were never supposed to reach the eyes or ears of the public.

The president in erotic affairs with actress Rachel Star?

That story would never see the light of day as far as Smoke was concerned.

He placed down his lethal weapon and aligned one squinted eye to the target.

"Good morning America." The vice president began, clutching his felt coat tightly shut against the cold. "and to you, the glorious people of New York. I've come here today, not only with the naked faith and intention, that the power of truth will prevail over evil, but also with great fortitude as I step out in the name of justice and attempt to insight you all into some very disconcerting and deeply pressing matters that...my wife and I have discussed in the days leading up to today..." he sighed. Smoke's finger snaked around the trigger holding it snug he exhaled deeply, letting go all emotion. "it is about, in large part the operations of presidency-"

A collective gasp sounded when the air was split with the sound of two gunshots and the vice president's body dropped like a two-ton boulder onto the hard wood of the stage.

Mass hysteria broke out.

Instantly Smoke swung the rifle atop his shoulder and left his position immediately. He dismantled the weapon until it was nothing more than a collation of metal cylinders and stashed them in his rucksack. As the screams of the public shook the earth beneath his feet, Smoke sprinted to the back of the building and his thin body disappeared down a fabric chute.

The moment his feet landed on solid ground, he removed his balaclava and ran eventually merging into the crowds, rushing desperately with them. Lost in the scramble of disarray Smoke slipped completely under the radar of armed security and got away.

100 million.

That's what those two bullets had been worth.

60 million for the first shot to the shoulder and 40 million for the insurance head-shot.

The entire amount had been transferred into the ghost account that no bank had on radar, to a man that no place in the world had on record. It was a cheque directly from the government.

"God I love Tuesdays." Smoke peered out upon the sunset from the open glass living room of his mansion on a deserted peak of Los Angeles. He swirled coffee around in his cup and temporarily tuned out of the moment with nothing but the buzz of the television to connect him to the outside world.

"... we know that superstar Michael Jackson was then rushed to hospital at the scene."

Smoke suddenly quivered as he felt the scorching pain of coffee burning all the way down the front of his grey t-shirt.

"Ahh!" he tried to salvage his steaming upper chest but ended up spilling more from his glass in the process. "Shit!" his head turned from the progressive puddle, quickly toward the television.

Indeed, Michael Jackson's image was splashed across the small screen and Smoke was forced to lay eyes upon the new him. Pale. Wealthy. Untouchable. With the world eating out of the palm of his hands by the looks of things these days.

No doubt an immensely attractive altruist to the average onlooker, but someone that Smoke now hardly recognised. Maybe he wasn't like before. Smoke thought as his eyes assessed the image in front of him. Maybe this new person was a poser, arrogant and self-loving. People of his status usually were that to begin with or became that in the end. Things changed when money got to people's heads, he looked different, it would be impossible for Smoke to imagine him not being different.

Either way it appeared he wasn't in the best shape currently.

On his speed walk to pick up the remote control Smoke heard the reporter gas on about the King of Pop, Rock and Soul's suffering after an impromptu collapse of exhaustion during some rehearsal.

The TV switched off and Smoke stood glaring at it in silence. Enamored by a memory once lived in his mind.

He'd returned from a weekend trip away on his own.

Nobody had known of his plans to leave. He hadn't informed Katherine of his impromptu and fairly insolent disappearance. She was livid when he'd returned home. She had shouted at him for the first time in his life and he had stared blankly at her, as a naïve teenager, unaware of why she'd taken things so personally.

After all it was not like he was her son. He was an outcast, he didn't belong to the Jackson family and he especially didn't belong to her.

He recalled further, with relief, that Joe Jackson hadn't been home on that night to add his unwanted 2 cents to the situation.

When he had gone upstairs and under Katherine's explicit instruction, thoroughly washed his hair then behind his ears and experienced almost half an hour of black dirt swirling around the drain pipe, he'd dressed in Jermaine's handed down old blue pinstriped pajamas and opened the door to his assigned bedroom only to be dragged in by his collar and pushed against the flower patterned walls.

The door closed firmly behind them.

"Where have you been?" came the sudden yet soft interrogation. Still through the faux firm voice he was attempting to put on, Kane could gauge a blunt dissatisfaction...no, _disappointment_ in Michael's voice.

"Where have _I_ been?" Michael's eyes were bright, wide, glistening and determined to have an answer out of him.

"Mother said you'd disappeared. You were gone for three days and nobody knew where you were. She was about to file a missing report on you. How could you just leave like that huh?"

Kane, not particularly attuned to overboard tight knit familial affection dodged the question and slid past his friend to find a suitable place to lay his towel.

"I'm surprised you even know what's been going on around here since you haven't been around much either. You wander where I've been but I could ask you the same thing." Kane threw back. Michael turned, arms crossed. Eyebrows a straight line shrouding bright orbs.

"I got back yesterday. But me performing a show is not the same as vanishing and not letting anybody know where you went. I have to be on the road. You know that."

"Well...I got bored. That sorta thing happens from time to time when nothing's going on at home"

"There's always school..." Michael tried to offer as some sort of incentive. Kane laughed out loud.

"You_ do_ know that I never actually show up to that school, right? I doubt they even know I'm a student there." Michael, lanky and awkward swanned up to him and stood near him taking the towel from his grasp just as he was about to place it over the headboard of the bed.

"Don't put it there, you know mom hates it there." Smoke smiled again. This time with mischief. When he'd climbed down from his mental high Michael's eyes were fixed on his and his gaze soon locked on Kane's mouth as he grinned. He'd blinked slowly and Smoke could almost see the anger dissipating from inside him. "My mother..." he'd began gently. "You might not believe it, but she really does care about you."

Another snort slipped from Kane's nose.

"I mean it Kane." Michael stressed, fighting to get through Kane's boyish noggin. "I know you don't mean to but...please don't disappear on her like that...she worries...and she's got enough to worry about as it is. As you can see Joe's not here tonight." Kane's eyebrow cocked with suspicion. Michael's voice lowered as his doey eyes became watery with emotion. "Yesterday they were arguing..."

"Arguing about what?"

Michael didn't speak, his eyes lowered to the ground. Kane's eyebrows furrowed. "about me..." Kane concluded for himself and shook his head. "Your dad doesn't want me here. I knew it."

"Joe's a hard-hearted man Kane. You can't take anything he says to heart." Michael uttered, firm in his beliefs about his father.

"How can I not? I'm living in _his_ house, under _his_ roof. Sometimes I think it'd be better for everyone if I just packed up all my stuff and went for good."

Then before Smoke knew it Michael had grabbed his arms and stopped his brash, animated hand movements and looked him right in the eye.

"No. No it wouldn't...it wouldn't Kane..." in the heat of the moment Kane sensed a certain urgency and desperation to Michael's voice which promptly banished the mere thought of his permanent absence. "Besides...my mom isn't the only one around here who'd miss you-" he'd said moments before the door unexpectedly swung open. Michael retracted his hands from Kane's arms in less than a second and parked them securely behind his back.

"Kane...your dinner is ready downstairs on the table." Katherine's silhouette had breathed exhaustively from the doorway. "After you get done you can come back up here to bed." she instructed.

"Yes ma'am." Smoke had respectfully replied.

"Michael."

"Yes mother."

"Help me change these bed sheets."

Kane remembered the way Michael's eyes had not even glanced his way as he and his mother assumed the task of making things comfortable for him. He lingered at the door, wandering if he should have vocalised the fact that he was a growing 15 year old boy with the capacity to spread his own bed himself and that with the newfound information he'd received from Michael, he was no longer comfortable with Katherine's fragile frame doing anything else for him that he didn't deserve.

He thought it best not to say a single thing more and to instead seek out the first warm home cooked meal he'd had in days.

M

The door of the ward creaked shut though sound didn't even seem to reach Michael's ears. He stayed still, staring blankly out of the half open window opposite him and took in the view of the thick leafy tree ahead, it's branches swayed becomingly in the breeze.

"Michael." came a voice to his left. Still no reaction occurred. Evander, masterfully immune to Michael's mental absence, pulled up a chair right beside his hospital bed.

"How are you feeling?" He outstretched a hand to check Michael's temperature. It was a split second decision for Michael to swerve his head completely to the far right in resistance of his touch.

"The doctor says you're dehydrated." Michael said nothing. "Come on Michael. You know this is why we have a strict dietary plan in place remember, to stop these things from happening. You can't expect to be able to keep up with rehearsals if you're a wilting plant."

"Maybe if I wasn't working so much I wouldn't be so dehydrated." Michael muttered bitterly.

"What was that?"

Evander as usual had assumed total control of the conversation by raising his voice. He pretended not to have heard Michael's complaint. "Michael we need you to be in tip top shape if you're going to give a peak performance. It's not going to be good if you pass out at one of your own concerts, it would be absolutely devastating for your fans."

Michael felt a wave of canned aggression flow through him as Evander turned his current predicament against him. As if Michael had chosen to collapse from exhaustion in the middle of a stage full of people at his rehearsal. He was sure Evander couldn't possible fathom the embarrassment he'd faced at having the world know of his weakened state. He released a long heavy breath, unwilling to participate in any more conversation and rolled onto his side turning his back on his manager.

"Well I'm sure I'll be all better with some rest." He replied curtly. A short silence followed.

"That's the spirit. I'll be back later today to check on you. Rest up." Michael listened to his steps while he vacated the room and heard the door close behind him. He lay staring at the adjacent wall for far too long. A certain swimming feeling in the pit of his stomach.

It was rare that he found any true opportunity for real peace at all these days as it was always at the back of his mind. That gut feeling. Some may call it intuition, but that strong spiraling feeling of doom you get when you realise you've potentially messed up your entire life, to the point where you have no idea how you got where you are or how to get out. It had only taken 3 words and 3 months to completely flip his entire world on its head.

Those words had been "Power of Attorney".

His anguished eyes closed as thoughts of his current situation flooded into his mind but in his emotionally numbed state he just let the thoughts pass on in the hopes that maybe if he let it go and ignored his situation somehow it might just all just go away.

Go away...

His eyes reopened and once again turned to see the thick tree trunk once again. Last night he'd had a dream that he'd climbed out of the window and jumped onto a branch.

Using it as a ledge he walked along it, balancing high above the ground all the way up to the trunk. As he enjoyed the open air and the free feeling of floating miles above the ground, he'd noticed the tree trunk had a door and there was orange light filtering out of it. He'd opened the door and stepped inside only to see a face that almost made his heart stop beating.

Sitting back casually in the chair, one ankle thrown lazily up onto one knee, Kane's lips had turned upward in a smug grin.

"I'm back. Did you miss me?"

He hadn't made it any further in the dream. His eyes had shot open in the dead of the night to find the same tree barren, its trunk without trace of a door as expected. He'd lay back, flattened under the power of the unwarranted mental blast from the past.

He tried to figure out which crevice of his mind decided to drag that face up and present it to him in the present. He'd tried not to dwell on it too long but the more he remembered the current state of his life the more the memory beckoned him in. Urging him further into escapism and to influencing him to contemplate how different things might have been. If only...

No.

No, it was ridiculous. Just a stupid dream and a slither of his subconscious mind that shouldn't have been let to the forefront. He forced it away again snuggling himself into a corner of his hospital bed.

Praying for a miracle to happen.


	2. Chapter 2

The day had been eventful even by Smoke's standards. He'd arisen at 5am. By 6 he was suited and booted and taking off for a run along the field near his home. Jury, his fully grown golden retriever and only ever pet sped off well ahead of him, his golden fur whipping luxuriously in the light breeze.

While he ran, he let the thoughts pass easily in and out of his head.

Since his latest job, the world had been spurred up into a whirlwind of morbid conspiracy theories and national panic over the recent political assassination, and the president was giving formal speeches on his plans to find and take down every conspirator and co-conspirator who had the despicable cunning to plan and undertake the gruesome attack.

Reviewing the facts Smoke humored himself by pondering the thought of exactly how the president would find, hunt and bring himself to justice before the public for ordering the death of his right-hand man.

Boy, the things the public don't know.

He gaped in more air and picked up the pace, determined to outdo his current record time. He could reach the large oak tree from his usual spot in 3 minutes and 37 seconds. He was slowing down these days, probably because his thoughts had been elsewhere aside from focused on pumping his quads.

Much like the night previously, he found his thoughts once again wrapped up in Michael for some odd reason.

He couldn't help it. Not now and not last night.

In his triggered curiosity. He'd peeled back the layers of his own logic and on a whim, he had gone to see him.

Suspended from a meaty branch high above the ground, perched like a thin black bird he'd stared straight through the window and seen him completely out of it, breathing softly beneath an aubergine blanket. His long pale fingers clipped up to some machine and his hair in easy waves across his face.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to indulge his own whimsical curiosities. He'd only really meant to climb up, find that Michael was nowhere to be seen due to the fact that celebrities hated to be in open view close to windows in case of unsolicited photographs, climb down and go along his merry way. Never did he really expect to see Michael's bed directly opposing the window and so revealing about his current state.

Smoke supposed they'd placed him there because they simply didn't expect the press to take things to the extent where they'd claw their way up a 30 foot tree just to get a glimpse into the 3rd floor window of the hospital.

Even from his superior distance, the encounter had felt somewhat intimate. He was spying into the life of an unknown man. That's what they both were now. Men. Not boys forced to share a room.

Still, he'd embraced the rush of gazing upon his face. A face that was so different to what he remembered and what he was used to but still one that was very easy on the eyes. Attractive. Innocent.

For a moment atop the branches he'd wandered if he'd made a mistake. Was his life a mistake. Should he have turned right and not left when he came to that internal crossroads. Should he have rejected the path that he'd so selfishly chosen.

Cold, disheartened and filled with bitter regret, Smoke had descended the tree with the skill and stealth of a well-seasoned squirrel and disappeared once again into the shadows.

He didn't have time to dwell on his past regrets and deep disappointments for long before he was receiving a new lead from the faceless source which he received most of his assignments through. A tricky one it seemed but it came with the reward of 15 million.

It would afford him more pet food for Jury, that was for sure.

High above the incentive of money was the enticing promise of a challenge for him to focus on that bought him out of thought and into action.

Just four days after the untimely death of the vice president he was instructed to tend to an issue that vowed to be waiting for him on the 14th floor of a set of offices south from his home and at a commercial address.

Dress code: Straight black ironed pants, crisp faintly striped shirt complete with metal name badge and suit tie, all of which had been dropped off at the LOC (location of choice) and hidden with no trace of who or where the package had come from. The LOC was always the cross way between Smoke and the "unseen source", the authors of incidental events and suspicious circumstances.

The location as always was his choice.

Always a place with no cameras, no surveillance footage and no witnesses. This time his attire had been attached by a string to the underside of a loose street vent on a road with abandoned road works. He wandered if the same government agents who orchestrated his missions ever went back to other departments to let them know about the lazy efforts these so called construction workers no doubt used a plethora of other excuses to explain away their delayed project completions.

There were still left over bread crusts one of them had clearly chucked astray "for the pigeons". All Smoke had ever spotted them doing was eating and exercising their mouths in frivolous conversation. Either way they were almost always gone by 4:27 sharp when the rest of the world didn't finish until 5 and never so much as spat on the place until 11am the next morning.

So at 4:28, he swooped right in, unhooked that bad boy and hightailed it home.

As he adjusted his tie in the mirror he paused a moment to take in his appearance.

Katherine would have been proud to see it.

He however never liked himself in formal fittings that were so openly embraced the world. By world of course he meant all those around him with a purpose other than putting serious holes in other people.

He leaned much more toward taught black clothing that clung tight to his muscles and held the promise of not getting caught on anything in case of rapid escape, large oversized hoods that masked all the way down to his upper lip and pants that narrowed at the ankle, funneling down into sock like, soundless shoes.

His clothes were tailor made by a Chinese lady who was living illegally in the country, she'd taken up residency at the back of her onion shop by a market stall in the city.

She was sweet, and perhaps the only person oblivious enough to actually trust him after years of Smoke building a rapport with her, up to the point where she'd divulged her status of immigration, and after him of course paying her generously for her work.

Of course, she knew nothing of his occupation and never would. She was one of a rare few who'd glimpsed his naked face in public.

He removed a total of 8 silver studs from his right ear and dropped them disgruntled into the pot on his dresser.

"Goodbye individuality." He muttered and straightened his shirt and picked up the last remaining item in the "drop off", a long purple lanyard which he placed around his neck. There he stood, assuming his latest identity as a tape factory employee. He'd surely have no trouble blending in dressed like this.

Staring into the pot full of studs another intrusive memory filtered in of him returning home.

His old temporary home.

His whole ear feeling as though it were on fire, he'd held a tissue stained with blood in his hand.

As soon as he'd crawled up to the doorbell of his temporary home, the door swung open and there stood Katherine, her eyes wide open in dismay.

"Where have you been Kane! What happened to you!" he scurried in and avoided the narrow clip on the ear that was attempted as he passed. That's of course when Kathy noticed. "You PIERCED your EARS?! Why would you do such a thing? My god! Look at them!" Faint on his feet and slightly light headed from the constant throbbing, he dabbed with the tissue again and for sure, a wet film of blood came away once again. "You. Are. A. _Child _Kane! When are you going to understand that you're not a man! You cant be walking out and about them streets late at night getting piercings...Good Lord...you're coming with me to kingdom hall this Saturday."

She'd been mad, maybe even betrayed by Kane's actions. He wandered if she felt like she was failing him, even though it was most definitely the other way around. She was an angel. Despite his unruly ways she'd sat him down at the kitchen table and cleaned his newly acquired wounds with a cotton pad, a concoction that stung like hell and a whole lot of patience...and cussing, don't forget cussing.

"And you couldn't just get one...no, you just had to go and get 8 all at once. What were you trying to prove Kane? You may as well go on and cry boy, go on, I know it hurts."

Kane felt his tear ducts stinging as she tugged on the throbbing studs, trying to clean around them. He'd manages to outwardly mask his suffering the whole way home but now in Kathy's warm presence, feeling her motherly concern and now with her express permission, he had finally allowed tears to present themselves.

"You better pray they don't get infected or it's gonna be a lot worse than this."

She'd sent him to bed once again with a fresh cloth and a whack on the back of the head.

If Kathy's reaction was bad Michael's was even worse.

Michael had somehow got it into his head that Kane was possessed by the devil and withdrew from him almost immediately after seeing his earful of studs. Michael had lay in his usual spot on the cheap metal wire bed that had always been the guest bed while Kane sank down onto Michael's double bed to sleep.

It had always been an unfair sleeping arrangement, but Michael never complained even once and in fact he'd insisted as much as Katherine did that Kane stay put there. Kane had offered up the bed multiple times but Michael always refused. Babbling on about how there is no greater show of love than giving your bed up to someone who needed it more.

They'd often stay up and talk well into the night about anything and everything 14/15 year olds liked to talk about but that night Michael had become reclusive and turned in early for the night.

The way he'd looked at Kane when he saw those piercings made Kane almost feel instant regret at impulsively indulging in his lifelong dream of getting piercings right before becoming a disciple of Hells Angels. After all what could be cooler than riding a motor cycle all day with a killer leather jacket on, getting girls and causing mischief.

Michael however didn't seem to quite share in his fantasy.

"The Hells Angels are satanic and racist and you'd have to be silly to believe in them." He'd dead panned. Kane, though hurt, had failed to respond for the mere fact that he lacked words. Michael had shut down his entire dream in a single sentence, but worse than that he'd left Kane thinking. He sank into silence.

It hadn't been the first time Michael had cautioned him to think twice before acting and this time Kane was stumped, forced to be in his own mind and really reflect on his own idealisms. For how much sense did it make for him to be a member of Hells Angels yet living well only at the sheer mercy of a religious black family.

None. None whatsoever.

Whether the Hells Angels were satanic racists or not, the truth of the matter was he'd be joining no such club unless he wanted to put his current living situation in jeopardy.

He'd fallen backwards on the bed, floored by his own epiphany and more than a little annoyed at Michael for briskly revealing the holes in his ideology.

And so he had gone to sleep with a throbbing ear and Katherine's threat for him to be carted off to church bright and early on the weekend clattering around inside his head.

Back in the present moment Smoke found himself smiling at the memory but quickly caught himself and cleared his throat as reality sank back in.

He knew what he had to do.

He arrived promptly at the location at 6:15pm. The place didn't shut until 7pm. He had 45 minutes to get in and get out. So in he went and as instructed joined the group of people all stood around spiriting purple land yards around their necks. He entered the elevator with them after they were briefed on the tour they were about to embark on.

"Right so we've got group F in here!" A short blonde lady with a high-pitched screech and thick goggles for glasses shuffled papers that looked bigger than her and far too much to manage from the front of the lift. He stood firm and confident against the back wall and nodded whenever the others nodded, laughing when they laughed at company jokes, silent when they were. Ahead of him a spicy black haired minx caught opportunist glances at him and winked whenever he so much as breathed in her direction.

If only you knew sweetheart.

Smoke commented inside of his head although he took the flattery where it came and awarded her a half inch smile for her efforts.

"Thompson! No wait..." the poor old lady rambled on with a weak and disorganized registration process, sifting through her books once again. "C-ah-Conner..." she stuck a thumb up when she saw the man in question turn threateningly in her direction, clearly as irked by the pitch of her voice as Smoke was. "Martin? Terrific! Is that everybody? You...I don't recognize you dear." She fanned an old crinkled hand over Smoke's interlocked hands.

"I'm new here ma'am but I was told to come on up and join group F." Smoke rendered in a spookily accurate country accent to the swooning reaction of the ladies who before hadn't had the bravery to stare boldly like the black hair girl did. The sudden attention cast upon him was their grand opportunity to do so apparently.

He wasn't surprised. He was young fit and muscular to the point where his shirt buttons clung onto each other desperately fighting the urge to burst open over his broad chest. Not to mention on this occasion, he'd brushed his shoulder length dark brown hair into slight waves, flipping part of it over to one side to hide the area shorter in length underneath that not too long ago was completely shaved.

He was in an entirely different league to the weedy boring men stood around them. He saw women whispering around him, giggle their little white collar heads off. He took it all in his stride.

"Okay, and your name please?"

"Laurence Graver."

"Oh yes we do have you here!" the old biddy went on ticking down her insurmountable list.

Smoke observed the slow rise in floor numbers as they were carried up into oblivion. 11...12...

Finally, they'd all spilled out in a jelly type fashion, up onto the 13th floor. The old lady led the way down a hall but Smoke was far too busy analyzing his surroundings. No camera's, 3 large overhead fans, 16 office cubicles and an intriguing looking door which he knew led to the staircases in the building from the map he'd been provided in advanced of the mission.

"Hi puddin' I haven't seen you around here before, have I?" the black-haired girl had finally cornered him as he remained lurking at the back behind the rest of the crowd. "I can tell you're new the way you're looking around. The lights aren't that interesting, I promise." Smoke gave as small chuckle.

"I'm not usually in this department." He offered shortly, followed by. "Is there a bathroom nearby?"

"Sure, just through that door past the stairway." She instructed. "Want me to take ya?" She stepped forward. Smoke held his hands out halting her quickly.

"No please..." he quickly covered his stomach and gave an awkward smile. "Chipotle...had a little too much in my food last night. Don't wanna slip up, especially not next to a gorgeous lady like yourself."

She gave a curious turn of her head, twirling a string of her hair coyly and looked amused by his confession. "Okay well you know where it is. Don't take too long..." she winked and then re-joined the rest of the group. With a leap of relief, Smoke made his way out onto the stairwell and observed his new surroundings. As promised the bathroom door stood directly ahead which he bypassed completely and swiftly took the stairs two at a time up to floor 14. The very top floor of the building by the looks of things.

Raising the depth of his breaths he lowered a hand to his pocket and felt the cool metal of his pocket knife caressing his warm flesh. Smoke gave an inquisitive eye through the key hole and saw behind the door a large unfilled office space that covered the entire floor. In the distance, his eyes were mostly focused on two legs jerking impatiently. No visible weapon. Smoke evaluated but knew that vital accessories such as weapons were easily concealed and could suddenly be whipped out from the most unsuspected places. Socks, waist lines, butt cracks you name it.

"Fate don't fail me now."

He uttered his famous words and swung open the door walking in sheepishly. Keeping much to himself he saw the man ahead straighten up. His eyes were a swimming blue with a soft baby like jaw cushioning the bone that begged to protrude through his pale flesh. Still Smoke kept his composure. No matter how attractive they were, this was strictly business and he had a job to do.

"Good Morning Sir." He'd uttered far too politely. Smoke had seen his type before. Operating much like that one delinquent teen in every bad friendship circle that could charm the pants off of everyone's mom but was the first one to commit arson. Yeah, that type.

"Fox Brown." Smoke had uttered the keywords and unlocked a whole different dimension to the man's personality and posture.

"This is it." He presented a small briefcase to Smoke. "The whole amount. 2 magazines and unloaded bullets. All 42 of them." He'd uttered with a final nod.

"Great." Smoke had simply replied and taken the briefcase with a firm grip. He'd said nothing more at that point. To his surprise the man seemed the social type and not shy to meet eyes with him. It was solely for that reason why Smoke got to see the expression on his face grow from smiley, to solemn and then last but not least sickly. Soon he was a pale as Smoke's white shirt.

"I guess that'll be all then" the man nodded deeply but still he didn't not move a hair. It was a tactical move. The oldest rule in the book. Turn your back on an enemy and it'll be the last time you turn anything.

Smoke, arriving from the same school of thought ceased to move either.

"I said that'll be all." Came the second try with more conviction and authority than the first. Smoke only swallowed as the man swayed on his feet. He could almost hear the cogs going in the mans head as he slotted pieces of information together in his head. "Ah shit!"

Smoke whipped the knife out of his pocket and advanced. The man was quick to block his attack and took off in the other direction. He was fast but Smoke was systematic. Calculating the minutes and seconds it would take for him to outrun this guy. The floor space was so expansive that it was easy to get lost in its breadth. The man took a swift left turn, then a right.

Smoke could just barely keep up with his wild dash and more out of impatience than anything else, he took a literal leap of faith and tackled the man to the ground. It was quick and the man released a whoosh of air like a popped tire. Smoke knelt over him making sure to see it through to the end. Waiting for him to breathe his last breath as blood spilled from his pierced lung. When he was certain that inevitable time was near, he stood ready to take the body across the floor and out to the chute which led straight downstairs when a ghoulish arm suddenly reached up and grabbed hold of his shoulder.

"You don't...even know...who...I am...do you..." The man wheezed. Smoke said nothing as he focused coldly on pulling the man's jacket from over his shoulders using it to soak up the blood he was oozing. His grip got tighter. "You did...the...same thing...I did...to the last...one...You're not...safe..." he ushered. That made Smoke pause in his actions. "You think you're s-safe...but...you never will be. They're coming for you...It's just...a matter of time. Just like they..." he suffered a grotesque coughing fit and blood dribbled down his chin. "G-g-got me...the government...P-Praeditus..." he struggled up until his head lolled back and the glow left his eyes.

Smoke sat with the body for a moment, the man's final words circulating in his head.

Last one? His thoughts were scrambling to make sense of his dying blubbering. Surely it was nothing but a hallucinatory rant as he passed over to the other side Smoke thought but there was a certain niggling just below his ribs that wouldn't let him pass off the words that easily. No. No the man had made sense. There was definitely sense inside his nonsense. And besides that, he hadn't used the word, death or spirits, no. He'd said government.

Government and Praeditus.

Praeditus.

What did that mean? What language was that even? Not English surely.

He revised the dying speech for a moment more but quickly opted to reserve his mental energy for completing the operation. He lifted the body and dragged it toward the chute, briefcase in hand. No blood was on the floor, no evidence left behind of his ordeal. Nothing left but the horrendous drop downward through the trash chute and into the dumpster beneath. He took a large breath and entered the drop to the bottom using the body to break his fall.

It felt almost foreign for him to set foot in Neverland again after being discharged from hospital. It was clean and everything was in order as it should have been, presumably thanks to his housekeeper Rosa, however still something about it lacked a soul and the life that souls usually bought with them.

Perhaps it had been the fact that all the park rides were as still as statues and looked as though they had been switched off for decades.

When he walked into his living room it looked bigger than he remembered it, almost to the degree where it dwarfed him and the small group he entered in with. His grounds were a beast in comparison to the places he'd been living temporarily for the duration of his back to back rehearsals. He emitted a soft sigh as he pushed his sunglasses further up his nose and his mouth churned a wad of water melon flavoured chewing gum around the circumference of his mouth.

After a brief moment of silent reflection and a short wash of relief at having returned to familiar grounds, he felt a small flame ignite in his stomach.

He was finally home.

He could now check the progress of his recent appeal. As he made for the stairs he felt bodies floating after him.

"I don't need guarding in my own house. I'd like it if you all waited here." He extended an obstructive hand to place distance between them. In all honesty, he was sick of seeing these people hovering around him every chance they got. They looked on at him but stayed put as he ascended the staircase.

"Rosa!" Michael's loud call could surely be heard throughout most of the house. Shortly after ascending the staircase he found precisely who he was looking for as she meekly poked her head out of a room in search of him.

"Oh, Michael you're back!" she said with gleeful undertones to her voice and a wide smile on her face. Instead of carrying on the conversation out in the hallway Michael deliberately stepped into the room with her, narrowly avoiding sinking his foot into her mop bucket full of water. He carefully and silently closed the door, turned and lowered his voice.

"Did you put the things in my office for me like I asked?" there was a hint of pleading present in his question.

"Yes Mr. Jackson, all your mail is under the door." She gave an assuring nod.

"And did anybody come by while I was away?"

He was halfway hoping to hear at least one of his family member's names come out of her mouth but Rosa seemed to struggle when attempting to place the face of the only person that she had seen.

"Yes, a tall gentleman, with dark hair, I think he's been here a few times before." Michael felt a strobe of irritation flow through him.

"Evander." He muttered bitterly. It didn't sound like a question or an answer.

"Yes, I think. He was trying to get in through the front door, I don't think he realised that you changed the locks before you left. He was calling out for me but I stayed out of sight, just like you said."

That intrusive bastard.

Michael thought inwardly and then gave a quick nod.

"Thank you, Rosa. I'm sorry, I don't mean to put you in this situation but I don't want him in the house while I'm not here, I hope you understand." Rosa nodded obediently. "And please keep collecting my post for me in the morning, first thing and bring everything up to my office. If he ever happens to talk to you just act like you don't know anything." Michael waved a playful hand and gave a somewhat mischievous smile. Rosa nodded.

"Of course Michael, I will."

"By the way you did an excellent job with the place while I was away. Everything looks perfect. Keep it up."

"Thank you, Sir." She beamed with pride. Michael knew that with the added encouragement she'd be collecting his mail like her life depended on it, and hers may not have but his surely did.

Michael left Rosa cleaning and approached his bedroom door. He slipped a key out of his back pocket and unlocked his personal sanctuary. With no time to lose he went straight into his closet and up to the safe at the far end of the walk-in room. He jotted in the combination. A date he vowed never to forget and heard the titanium safe door pop open with relative ease. Inside, there rested several other keys, his old piggy bank that he'd neglected years ago and a weathered box on the top shelf. He took one of the keys that were laid out and re-locked the safe.

He took that key to his study and unlocked the door for himself.

He fought a little to push open the door and nearly tripped over the mound of letters that lay collecting dust at his feet. He closed and locked the door behind himself, collected the mail and got to work with his letter opener. Slicing open envelope after irrelevant envelope. Some letters were of mild importance but none were the one he was militantly seeking, and then finally about 14 letters in, he skimmed through the contents of a page and found the keywords he'd been clamoring for.

He read every word, soaking up every last detail, his eyes unblinking and teeming with hope, but after a just few lines Michael felt his hope slip away from him like a silk cloth out of a dry hand and his stomach wrenched itself into a tight knot.

One hand gripped the page tightly causing it to crease on one side while the other arose to hold his temples as he let his eyes fell shut with disappointment.

His second attempt at revoking the Power of Attorney terms with his law firm that he'd so stupidly signed over to Evander had been callously rejected. For the same reason as the first claim had been.

No legitimate proof of his mental stability following his recent trip to rehab.

They were also refusing to prosecute Evander for embezzlement as there was no evidence that his assets were being used out of accordance with their agreement.

Bullshit.

He threw the letter down on his desk.

He kept searching through the pile.

His bank had come back with the same story.

Anger surged through his veins but worse than that was the feeling of being unable to blame anybody but himself for what was transpiring in his life.

How could he have let things ever get to this point? How? He used to be militant about who he let into his life and close to his personal affairs.

He took a deep breath and clutched the arms of his seat in defeat.

It was true that there were many things in his life he wasn't proud of. He wasn't proud of his inner turmoil and baggage, he wasn't proud of his appearance, most of all he wasn't particularly proud of his decision to turn to drugs in an attempt to heal his inner turmoil of stress and loneliness.

Sure, he was proud when he overcame his addiction, but it was short lived. Things should have never gotten to that stage in the first place. He'd been set back. That wasn't the direction his life was supposed to go in and he would do whatever he could to fight going down that dark path again.

Nobody knew about his issues apart from those who were in direct contact with him and saw it first-hand. They were his old body guards, his old staff. Many of whom weren't around him anymore. Evander had made sure of that.

_"Those people are enablers Michael."_

Evander had said at the time.

_"If you truly want to get better you can't have them around you."_

And Michael in his vulnerable state of drug induced paranoia had believed him. He'd believed the people around him were out to destroy him, he'd believed every word Evander had said because Evander had a different perspective to everyone else.

He hadn't been afraid to shine a light and show him who his enemies really were and not only that but he helped him to get away from those people, he genuinely cared about Michael and in that moment, he'd meant so much to him.

Just his presence had reminded Michael of better days. He was reminded of what friendship felt like because Evander had a spirit that felt familiar. In all his days, he never thought he'd meet someone that once again set off that childlike sense of excitement within him.

They shared a genuine connection and it wasn't long before Evander had Michael believing he just had to be an angel sent from god. In his broken co-dependent state, he'd craved the company of at least one other person in the entire world that simply cared whether he lived or died and he found that finally through Evander.

He was the one that petitioned for Michael's recovery and presented the whole idea that he'd keep an eye on things for Michael while he got better. He'd been invited in as Michael's new music manager covering the term of 6 months which wasn't supposed to mean much more than he'd deflect away offers for interviews and handle everything to do with PR until things blew over. That was fine with Michael, knowing in the back of his often-fearful mind that he could always let Evander go at any given time if things weren't working out.

But he'd had no reason to worry, things were smooth going until on a particularly turbulent night Michael had made the mistake of revealing in a fit of tears that he was in financial sinkhole. He'd let Evander know all about the snowballing amount of debt that he'd accumulated throughout the years where he'd taken a break from music.

Millions of dollars had somehow slipped right out of his account and down the drain for all he knew, and worse than that, it was incurring interest.

Having admittedly not had a single soul around whom he trusted to truthfully handle his affairs and not screw him over, the blindfold was well and truly on when it came to Evander and his kind words, so when the subject of his Power of Attorney was bought up and Evander came to him humbly with the promise to do all he could to not piss away any more funds on Michael's behalf and to basically oversee things for the short amount of time that Michael was admitted to rehab, to Michael it sounded like a dream come true.

And besides that, it was another one of those things that Michael could simply sign a letter and revoke if things weren't working out.

Only it had back fired majorly.

He'd recovered from rehab, and left sober of mind and heart, only to find that his entire world on the outside had in the space of a few weeks been flipped completely upside down.

He soon found out that Evander had been cutting deals left right and centre with the agenda to get Michael back into work again. Then with his newfound superpower, The Power of Attorney, he'd crossed the boundary Michael had entrusted him to stay within and granted himself a 2 year extension on his management contract along with an update to the reigning term of his Power of Attorney which would now last just as long as his management term did.

How. Michael had remembered thinking. How this could have all transpired without even a drop of input from him was ridiculous. It couldn't be legal.

Evander had set everything up to work in his own favour. If Evander's management term was terminated prematurely, Michael wouldn't have a leg to stand on in court because he'd be refusing to adhere to the terms laid out in the contract that _he_ signed that insured Evander a lifespan of at least 2 years.

What did that mean?

It meant being dragged through the court system and being sued into oblivion if he tried to fire Evander on the spot, and Michael just couldn't afford to take another hit while he was down. It was a particularly bad move to pursue with Evander still in charge of his financial affairs.

At first speechless and then livid, Michael had done all he could to convey to his lawyer that he'd made a terrible mistake and needed to undo everything he had done.

Only, his lawyer wasn't just his lawyer anymore. Unbeknownst to Michael Evander had swooped in and hired him for his own personal gain and it quickly became apparent that he'd be getting nowhere with the sudden conflict of interest.

He'd been scouring for a new lawyer ever since to get some information on how to rectify his career threatening mistake. The whole time trying to keep the situation under control inside of his mind, trying to hold it together and to stay calm and to keep the embarrassment of his mistake all to himself.

Still angry at the fact that his career and finances were at the sole command of a man he believed had genuinely cared about his well-being. A man that was far too intelligent, who knew far too much about him and who currently held far too much power over him.

One thing he didn't understand however was the push back from his law firm and the banks so far. Nobody seemed willing to take his statement seriously and stop allowing Evander to make decisions without him knowing or to believe that he himself was mentally capable enough to resume Power of Attorney over his own affairs.

Instead they all seemed to want him to prove that he wasn't still co-dependent on drugs.

Well if its proof they want then it's proof they'll get.

Michael arose from his chair and stormed out of his office.


	3. Chapter 3

Smoke dropped the black duffle bag onto the stained brown wooden table under the dim lampshade, causing dust to stir upwards around it.

"That's it."

Robinson leaned forward with inquisitive hands and pealed open the zip. Tens of thousands of dollars lay stuffed inside as promised.

"Nice." He said approvingly and snatched the bag off the table.

"I threw in a little extra." That made Robinson stop in his movements. "There something I want you to do for me." Smoke uttered beneath his low hood. Robinson leaned back, his dark skin blending into the darkness in the room yet his eyes remained wide and locked onto Smoke.

With some hesitance Smoke turned on his heel and disappeared through the door, returning seconds later with a large hound, it's leash wrapped twice around his hand. Jury drooled his way into the room and Robinson sprung out of his chair.

"Yo, no dogs! Hey man!" Robinson yelped. Smoke continued walking up to Robinson and held the chord out to him. Real fear was present in Robinson's eyes as he stood coiled up on top of his chair. "You have got to be kidding me man."

"I need you to take care of jury."

"Are you out of your mind? Do I look like some kind of pet sitter to you? You know I hate dogs."

"I know that's why I paid you extra."

"Look Smoke, I know every man his price but you can't pay me enough to do this!"

"Come on Neil you're the only one I can trust to not let him starve."

"Why cant you feed him? You planning on dying soon?" Robinson probed.

Smoke tied the chord to the table leg and pulled out the chair that was tucked under it. He flopped down into it and leaned forward clasping his hands together. His knee was bouncing of its own accord and he appeared restless.

"No...but I'm going to be away for a while."

"Away? Where? Smoke come on man, I've never seen you like this. You look jumpy. What's wrong?"

"I don't know I just...Just need to get my head straight."

"But we need you straight now Smoke. We're real fucking close to nailing Antonio. Did you forget about all the stuff you got lined up? You cant just pull out of a gig like that, you know these people don't play." Robinson shuffled around awkwardly on his chair trying to find a comfortable position above the ground. Jury barked at him and he whimpered springing up again.

"I know that. I know. And I'm still going to get Antonio, but after that...this might be it for a while...I have some stuff I need to sort out." Robinson raised an eyebrow.

"So Smoke's taking a vacation?" Robinson asked skeptically. "Damn. What happened man?"

"What did you know about the last guy they sent me out to?" Smoke boldly inquired ignoring the question.

"Who, that blue eyed dude? I don't know man. I think he been on their radar for some time."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Bottom line is, the big boys wanted him butchered. Now he's gone. Thanks to you."

Still that didn't sit well with Smoke. He sighed.

"Well, all the money is in there, I bought pet food with me. He needs feeding three times a day. Just let him out back if he wants to walk around. He'll come right back. He's a good dog." Smoke shook Jury's fur as Jury took in his surroundings, seeing nothing sufficient enough to chase after yet.

"Man I don't know..."

"Please Neil. I need you right now." Something in Smokes voice triggered the response he was hoping for and Neil's shoulders softened.

"Does he bite?"

Smoke took Jury's leash and handed it to Robinson. "Only if you forget to feed him."

"Good doggie...g-good dog..." Robinson slowly came down from his perched position and then began to rub at Jury's fur.

"Have you ever heard of the word praeditus before?" Smoke suddenly interjected. Neil seemed to stare off into the distance lost in thought before he met eyes with Smoke.

"Where you hear that at?" he asked, as though Smoke's question was both confusing and absurd. Smoke shrugged.

"Around." He offered vaguely. After a piercingly crazed and prolonged gaze Neil simply shook his head and resumed paying Jury the utmost attention.

"Sounds like Spanish to me..."

Smoke hadn't let on about his fears surrounding his own safety.

After his conversation with Robinson, a trusted partner and the only person he endured regular contact with, he'd gone home and tried to let them all go. If even Robinson hadn't heard a murmur of the word praeditus before then there was a strong chance he'd heard wrong. Perhaps it had all been gibberish falling from the dying mans lips after all.

But deep down Smoke knew, when taking a swig of wine to commemorate the absence of his dog, which later turned into whopping desperate gulps, that something was still bothering him.

He'd had a whole week to himself after Jury's leave to use as downtime and to clear his own head but he still hadn't done much more than fold all his clothes. He didn't own much. Maybe 5 separate outfits in total. It was minimalism taken to the extreme and was normal for him, but what he couldn't understand was why he'd packed them all in his bag instead of away in the drawers where they belonged. He'd sat back and stared into the bag while inside occurred a deep tugging at his soul.

He was being ridiculous, surely.

What was he going to do, leave? Leave and go where? More importantly, what was he escaping?

Could he even escape whatever he was running from if he wanted to?

He wasn't so sure.

Still he'd spent ample time watching the clock and filling the silence with the faint gurgling sound of wine disappearing down his throat. Then finally, when the phone rang with the details of his final job, as promised he arose in the other frame of mind. The frame that was brutal and unemotive. The frame that killed without remorse.

Mission 184

Subject, Terrence Antonio, well respected gangster and owner of the Dishma nightclub chain. He also happened to be responsible for the largest and most elaborate underground drug and immigrant female trafficking ring ever seen in L.A. The guy moved everything from prostitutes to PCP from what Smoke had discovered through Neil. And not to mention he had enough power to take someone out while sitting comfortably at home and playing records for his niece. The guy had a ridiculous amount of clout and an unforeseeable amount of hands at his disposal with which to do his dirty work without him having to do it himself.

But his largest offence to date it seemed wasn't murder or modern slavery, instead the government seemed to have had it with his blatant uncouth tax evasion and on top of that word had been going around that he'd threatened to expose the names of some well-known, very high profile narcotic pushers.

Apparently, the list contained some widely respectable figures in the world. Could be anybody from Oprah Winfrey to the Pope for all Smoke knew but either way the government had labelled him a problem. Smoke was the answer to that problem.

That night Smoke was forewarned that Antonio would be attending a meeting with another very low key but apparently uber-rich man. The type you don't see too often in the real world. The type that builds his own world around himself and lives inside of that instead. He went by the name of J. or something of the sort. Of him Smoke knew nothing.

He had no idea of the nature of their dealings with each other either. Only that by the end of the night, one of them would not be leaving alive, and that man was Antonio.

So Smoke got clad in uniform at 9:30pm and prepared for service at 10.

It was at least 100 degrees in the kitchens.

Smoke, although suitably nicknamed, was suffering slightly as fire floated on pans making the air thick and heavy and staff bustled in and out of the kitchens. He smoothed his hands over his apron and walked out into the noisy murmur of guests that filled the grand and very extortionate, private restaurant. Smoke had gleaned the menu prices which started at around $1000 upward.

Definitely not the average restaurant for your average birthday party.

Smoke had scoped things out and offered appetisers to table number 34 all whilst keeping eyes on table 62.

It was Antonio. No doubt.

He exuded stature and power, his hair was luscious and scooped backward in an obedient swoop. He clearly hadn't bothered to shave his eyebrows into separation. Or perhaps unibrows were attractive where he came from.

Clad in a fitted navy blue suit and red shirt, he snapped is fingers and made pressing demands to a waiter who had apparently done something wrong. His face was stern and brutish. That, Smoke knew, was the look of a man with the world in his hands and everyone up to and including the government at his mercy.

Beside him sat a plump fuck who, conversely, seemed happy enough to quietly indulge in any and everything set before him and so when Antonio wouldn't take the roast pork that the frazzled waiter had placed on the table, he'd had no issue gobbling it willingly on his behalf.

Observing the fact that Antonio would spout aggressively at the waiters causing a scene and purposely inviting the attention of surrounding tables in to view his performance, when faced with the fat man beside him he engaged him with a remorseful look and a kind semi smile.

This could only be Solomon.

After indulging in a jiggly chuckle Smoke watched the large man heave himself up and excuse himself from the table.

Likewise, Smoke arose from his bent position as he served and with good timing he followed the flustered waiter who'd finally gained reprieve and made an escape back into the kitchen.

"Is there a problem on table 62?" Smoke had inquired innocently.

"They want everything! Stuff that I've never even heard of before. I tried to tell him that we don't serve smoked whale fin but he just keeps shouting."

"Alright don't worry, I'll help you." Smoke offered quickly placing his plate down. The waiter looked immensely relieved.

"Thank you." the waiter rushed off and grabbed another tray of food. "Please serve them this, I'm going to go and talk to the chef." Smoke stopped in dismay and rolled his eyes.

This wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he offered to help. He wasn't there to serve up entrées, he was there to get his hands on Antonio's drink.

Still he took the roasted clams and swindled out of the door. Upon closer inspection however he caught sight of something that begged for his attention. In the middle of the selection of sea shells writhed a steaming snakes tail. Still alive and still fighting death by the looks of it.

That must have been the sorry screaming morsel that one of the junior chefs was wrestling to get into a boiling pot of water just minutes earlier. In his intensely focused state he'd mistaken if for a portion of spaghetti.

Smoke almost dropped the damn thing on the spot as the sight instantly freaked him out.

A beefy figure bumped into him but his sharp reflexes saved the tray from flying onto the nearest unsuspecting dinner table.

He paused to take in the large figure but it'd already passed him, seemingly without even realising Smoke was standing there. Or not caring, one of the two.

Smoke might have turned and glimpsed the man properly if it wasn't for the sudden and very incessant snapping of Antonio's finger tips ahead of him. He marched on with as much grace as he could muster.

"Your...main's sir..." Smoke placed the tray in front of him. Antonio wasted no time digging into the barely edible selection with a judgmental fork.

"Are these well done?" he started.

Here we go, Smoke thought.

"You people make me sick." He began raising his voice. "I don't know if you are all deaf or just dumb?"

"Not to your liking sir-?" Smoke began.

"Oh just take it! And get out of my sight. With all of those empty piercing holes in your ears I doubt you'd be able to hear my order properly anyway." Smoke straightened, his grip tightening on the tray and made to leave the table.

Christ, I can't wait to fucking end this guy, he fumed.

All he had to do was extract the peculiar green pill from his apron and finish the job he came to do. He just had to drop off the drink, make sure Antonio took a sip and then disappear like a puff of smoke.

"I'm so glad your back! Here's the wine for the table, I'll take out the other mains!" the pedantic waiter gushed then hurried back the way he came. Smoke laid eyes on the thick blood red drink as his chest arose. This was his chance.

He had to be quick.

He took the glasses and dropped the small green pill into the one closest to him. As Smoke approached the table, he immediately began pouring wine in over the tablet.

He'd dealt with such lethal drugs that the government had provided before. They were pretty instant in their disintegration when mixed with liquids and left no residue. Colourless, odourless killers.

"A drink for you sir, compliments of the chef."

"Finally, you people have done something right." Antonio brooded miserably and readily drew the tainted glass closer to himself.

Smoke, his hands trembling slightly now, continued to serve the table.

He thought it was a predicament of national concern when he felt the floor suddenly tremble beneath his feet as mammoth steps were taken not too far behind and a hefty presence appeared soon after.

No earthquake, just a man, Smoke noted.

"Pardon me sir..." Smoke had courteously moved aside to let the fat guy Solomon through but when Solomon greeted him with a ghostly glance, looking much like a perturbed gerbil, Smoke felt a shiver go down his spine and his intuition begged him to take heed.

He quickly looked away and as swiftly as he could, made his way down to the other end of the table when he noticed Solomon slowly lean over and lower the untouched glass in Antonio's hand, bending into his ear to whisper secretively.

Smoke slowly straightened as the entire table tuned in to witness Antonio's blood red glass, much like a magic trick, strip itself of colour and evolve into a translucent liquid meanwhile every other glass at the table remained red.

Smoke slowly backed away from the table, hoping to recede into the moving bodies around the restaurant. Hoping to fade away. Praying that he could somehow disappear because that's the only way he'd be able to escape this.

It had been a dud...

The goddamn pill had been a dud!

He felt faint on his feet.

A momentarily confused Antonio quickly began to shake and his skin turned burgundy with brewing fury.

Code Red. Abort.

Without a moment to think, Smoke took a wild flip under the nearest table, all whilst Antonio's people stood up and bullets began to ring out in the air.

People inside the restaurant began to scream and took to the ground to scurry like rats much to Smoke's advantage. Smoke crawled with them trying to stay among the crowds and to not be seen. He himself had no weapon and had to rely solely on safety by numbers. Finally he got his break just as the men were closing in on his location and he ducked out through the doors of the restaurant. Down the steps and out the front door.

Running.

Racing.

The doors burst open behind him and bullets sprayed the air not too far behind. He took a sharp left and didn't stop pumping his quads until he was sure he'd lost them.

What the fuck.

He'd thoughts as he sat inside the filthy sealed dumpster he'd climbed in to avoid being seen.

The whole time a thought flashed up in his mind over and over.

Somebody set me up.

M

There was a knock on the door of his presidential hotel suite in Turkey. Michael didn't bother to answer out of sheer exhaustion having just performed a 2 hour show.

His hair was tied back into a tight bun and his makeup had been removed. That meant he was in for the night and it also meant no visitors.

Whoever it was knocked again.

"Michael, it's me." Evander called. Michael rolled his eyes and scoffed beneath his breath before he swanned off to the bathroom to fetch some more makeup wipes for his chest.

Intent on ignoring Evander completely Michael pretended not to hear the third knock that followed, or the fourth one...or the fifth one...

He sat insolently on his bed and wiped away at his chest with one hand, loosening the millions of buckles on his boots so that he could finally slip them off. He wasn't prepared when the lock on the door clicked by itself and the door opened. He froze instantly and Evander strolled casually into his room closing the door behind him with a stony look in his eye.

"Didn't you hear me knocking?" he finally spoke.

"You're not allowed to just walk in here." Evander gave a smug smile despite Michael's curt words.

"I was concerned, I mean anything could have happened to you in here by yourself. You could have slipped and bumped your head for all I know. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it's a good thing I have this _spare key,_ isn't it?" His eyes glowered with a knowingness that sent shivers down Michael spine.

He knew in that moment that this forced intrusion had been a subtle payback for Michael changing the locks at Neverland. Neither of them let on that they were onto the other. Both remained in a weird state of ignorance. "So, you sold out the entire arena tonight...well done." He continued in his patronising tone. Probably believing that Michael was genuinely encouraged by his words.

Michael simply side eyed him in silent disgust. "You are going to be out of debt very soon if you continue on like this superstar." Evander winked and Michael could have sworn there was absolutely nothing behind his eyes. No guilt, no remorse, no soul even. This man had been working him like a dog and yet he still had the brazen nerve to walk into his presence and boast about the matter.

Michael said nothing feeling his patience quickly wearing thin. "Speaking of debt, I have something I've been needing to discuss with you." Evander turned and locked the door behind him. That's when Michael stopped cleaning his chest and sat up attentively. A certain nervousness presented itself now that they were in an enclosed environment. But Evander didn't just stop there, he went around the room and pulled every open curtain shut. Michael watched him anxiously.

"What are you doing." He finally sprung up as fear began to set in. Evander turned back to the bed and waved his hands downward to indicate that Michael was overreacting.

"Sit, I just want to talk." He went to the opposite side of Michael's king-sized bed and perched on the edge in his black and white business suit. His jet-black hair was scooped back.

With hesitation Michael descended once again and perched uncomfortably on the opposing edge of the mattress.

Maybe he wants to give my power of attorney back to me, he thought wishfully knowing that it was probably a pipe dream.

"Your efforts have attracted a lot of people's attention these past few months." Evander began, he pulled at his collar indicating that he was hot. The room was somewhat sweltering, even despite it being night. "I'm not sure you understand this Michael but your brand image is a force to be reckoned with. A lot of hard to reach people would pay an unfathomable amount to invest in what you have built. But we don't want just anyone investing in you. We want the right person and Michael I have somebody interested in you that could pay off your entire debt and purchase Neverland cash with just the spare change he has in his back pocket. I'm talking ultra-wealthy Michael and he wants to sponsor you."

Michael controlled the eye-roll this time and instead he just sighed impatiently. "Oh yeah? And who might that be..." He sarcastically toyed with Evander's ridiculous proposal not for a moment taking him seriously. Always sceptical of the grandiose and often glittering proposals that people bought to him in an attempt to marvellously propel him to a new level in his career. Those same opportunities almost always turned out to be glitter coated shit in the end.

"Luca Scalisi." Evander finally said.

Slowly the amused smile slipped from Michael's face. His eyes slowly arose to meet Evander's and saw no hint of joking in them.

Michael had made it more than half of his life without ever even hearing that name pass his ears. But he began to notice some point after seeing massive success and once his estate had surpassed the threshold of about 250 million dollars that his outer world stated to change. Suddenly an entirely new breed of people who were much wealthier than him started to filter in around him and he started getting invites to have dinner with the 1 percent.

He'd only been to a few events to save appearing rude, being the shy individual he was and not necessarily into the whole elite shoulder rubbing thing he still went and ate with presidents, broke bread with the princes and princesses of wealthy countries and conversed with people who were sure to go down in the history books for their massive impacts on the world. Stranger still Michael discovered that he was equally a person of interest to these people and they were queuing up to meet him.

He was often quite mute at those events, out of place even, and usually always eager to go home and write music but even whilst partially tuned out to the goings on around him, usually while tucking into some of the best food he had ever tasted in his life, he still started to notice that whenever he would dine with these people, this name would keep cropping up in conversation.

Scalisi.

Any talk of that family always felt like the telling of an ancient myth and people treated their name as if it were some sacred passage. Weirder still was the fact that nobody had ever claimed to have met or even seen one of these so called revolutionary investors personally and Michael never recalled being informed that one of them was ever as those special events.

In the midst of all the speculation it had gone over Michaels head. It puzzled him to think that there were people whom others deemed "above themselves" and deserving of such obsessive conversation and excessive thought. He thought the whole thing was nonsense. Who wanted to waste time talking about all the riches of some family that nobody seemed sure even existed when they could be writing music. At home. Alone. In silence.

It seemed like a mini party game at the table to debate exactly what and how much the Scalisi family owned in their portfolio. Banks, prisons, private islands (like not listed on the global map private), transportation systems, airports, space constellations, royal families, meteorites and even a small slice of the ocean were all cited to all be a part of their financial portfolio and under their exclusive ownership. They held the sort of fame and notoriety that made your average celebrity feel like small fish on a big hook, gasping for air, praying to be thrown back out to sea in an area they could dominate.

Perhaps that was why Michael felt so uncomfortable hearing about them. People made them out to be so big that he almost felt small with his little old "biggest music artist in the world" status.

But more than anything they were largely known for investing in unorthodox things, including people. It was this fact that prevented Michael from calling bullshit straight away. Still he imagined you'd have to be a pretty big deal to garner the attention of the so-called Scalisi family as an investment. Seemed like a large feat, even by Michael's standards.

On top of that was the whole invisibility thing. From what Michael had gathered, they didn't seem like the type of people you'd just bump into at your local grocery store, no they were apparently heavily shut away with lock and key, living only god knows where doing god knows what.

This idea in the end is what served to fuel Michael's sense of entertainment.

"Scalisi? You mean that imaginary family that nobody's ever seen in real life?" He said with deliberately large patronizing eyes and childlike wonderment.

"Oh yeah." Evander said challenging Michael with his seriousness.

"...and let me guess, _you_ had a good ol' talk with them and they told you that they want to pay all my bills for me?" Michael concluded with heavy sarcasm. "Right, sure, I think I'll pass on that investment." He said. Evander held an assertive half smile and pressed his fingertips firmly together.

"With all due respect Michael, you don't know who I am...you have no idea the kinds of people I have access to."

Michael raised a brow at his loathsome cockiness but simultaneously felt the hairs over his whole body raise at Evander's words. Evander was still, his eyes burning Michael's face, his smile was gone and he was resoundingly serious now.

"Tell me, what happened to society Michael? Why are there people at the top and people at the bottom? And just like a pyramid, the pond remains small at the top and large at the bottom." Evander threw out there. Michael wandered if it was a trick question.

"I guess some just work harder than others."

"No. The people at the very top don't work at all." Evander rebounded. That made Michael pause in thought. It was no secret that there were wealthy people that had never worked a day in their entire life.

"Listen, you're a big deal Michael but you're in a massive amount of debt, and I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't let you in on the fact that...there is an entire world out there that you don't even know about yet. Your life could be enriched beyond your wildest dreams, you could be above the law, above taxes, above the possibility of ever going broke...but you have to let me help you." Evander spoke softly. In that friendly way that had first gotten Michael's attention.

That same voice that had swindled him out of possession of his own estate, wormed its way into his heart and gotten him to open up to him and then crushed him like a bug.

But Michael was wiser now. He knew that Evander was not to be trusted.

He felt a certain uneasiness in his stomach as Evander continued on. The concept sounded like one that shouldn't exist but he felt in his stomach that it really might. He was being propositioned for something dark and hidden, he could feel it in his bones.

"Just think about it Michael. If you could ensure happiness for you and your family for generations to come, would you do it?" Michael didn't so much as move, unwilling to give anything away. "Of course, you would." Evander answered for him.

"And there are people out there that live this way Michael. You could be worth billions with the right backing. And you like kids right, you could have entire schools in your name, cities renamed after you, you can build up an entire legacy to leave behind for your family. You can have whatever you want in this world Michael, in your name, do you know that means? It means immortality." He almost drooled.

Michael noticed how Evander's eyes seemed to stare more through him than at him as if he wasn't a person at all but a mere object. He clasped the open halves of his shirt together feeling a sudden chill despite the hot room.

"All of that?" Michael tried to bring Evander back down to earth. "In exchange for what I can only imagine..." He felt his heart thudding in fear.

"You..." Evander stopped suddenly blinking and seeming to come back to reality from whatever fantasy had been playing in his head. "Y-Your promise to help others that are _in the know _so to speak." he slowly arose from Michael's bed finally and stepped back. "but I'll let you get to sleep. You must be tired after that show and we're flying home bright and early tomorrow morning so rest up." He swaggered toward the door.

After swinging the door open he paused a while before looking over his shoulder.

"Just remember what we talked about." He nodded and finally wandered out. The door closed and was re-locked from the outside. Michael felt a deadening thud in his stomach. He couldn't help but get that tight gut feeling that told him something wasn't right.

He already knew that a lot wasn't right. So far, he hadn't managed to get Evander's nose out of his affairs and ever since he gave him that initial slither of access, he'd flipped everything around to his advantage. But the thing that loomed around the most in Michael's brain had been Evander's chilling words.

_You don't know who I am_

Michael couldn't shake the feeling they presented him with because in truth he did not really know who Evander was in this world. He was only just beginning to learn what kind of person he was.

The fact that he'd fooled Michael so well. The fact that he was even sitting in a hot hotel room in Turkey right now, contrary to where he really wanted to be which was safely at his home in Neverland, instead he was here working away just to not get sued by breaching the terms of whatever contracts Evander had him bound up in proved an unbelievable degree of cunning that Evander held inside of him which Michael never would have dreamed existed there.

He'd masterfully swooped in, secured himself a position both as his manager and as the spokesman for his entire estate all within the space of a few months of courting Michael into believing they were friends. He was manipulative, opportunistic and had clearly preyed on Michael's vulnerabilities, all whilst encouraging him to kick his drug habit.

Why do all that just to get access to Michael's assets? He may as well have let him continue on as an inebriated mess with no clue where his money was going and who was trying to control him.

Michael carried with him the eerie sense of being groomed. Especially after their talk tonight. Michael had pretended not to know what Evander was talking about but he'd been exposed to talks of things such as secret societies before and he'd heard of all the immense benefits under the sun.

He'd also heard a sleuth of not so decent stories regarding what those same people in secret societies got up to. He never saw himself as a part of that life, it took sheer blood sweat hard work and tears to get to where he was. Of course, recently he'd put himself in jeopardy by making poor financial decisions but still he'd come up and down off his own back and not on the coattails of anyone else.

He didn't owe favours to anybody, and that freedom meant the world to Michael.

What Evander presented just didn't appeal to him.

None the less he felt something horrible coming his way if he didn't get this man out of his life soon.


End file.
